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Pres. Barack Obama's Idea of "Government Transparency" Would Make Dick Cheney Proud


Remember when Barack Obama was running for president and he promised that, unlike secrecy-obsessed George Bush and Dick Cheney, he would insist on a “transparent” administration that wouldn’t hide information from the American people unless it was absolutely necessary?

That would have been nice. But of course it turns out it was just talk. Obama has only been president for 10 months and already he is just as casual as his predecessors about demanding secrecy for things that have no good reason to be kept secret at all.

Why, for instance, is the Obama White House fighting so hard to prevent the release of documents about who lobbied Congress to give immunity to the telephone companies that cooperated with Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program?

A federal court concluded that there is no reason for the administration to keep that information from the public. It’s not classified. There aren’t precious national security secrets at stake. It’s a list of names of those who spent money to influence our elected officials into voting their way on the passage of a law.

The names on that list might somehow turn out to be politically embarrassing to some members of Congress, or even to some members of the Obama administration—remember, as a Senator Obama voted in favor of giving telecom companies immunity from prosecution. But embarrassment shouldn’t be a good enough reason to keep something secret, especially not in Obama’s new promised land of transparency.

Yet the administration has refused to obey the court’s order. First the White House asked for a 60-day delay. The court knocked that down. Then they tried for a 30-day delay. Again, the court said no. So they then filed an emergency motion to prevent the release of the documents. Once more, the court turned them away.

But this week, after administration lawyers tried yet again, the court finally caved and agreed to postpone the order to make the documents public.

A proud day for democracy. High fives all around at the White House.

Eventually, we’ll find out what’s going on here. Or, maybe we won’t. Cheney pulled all kinds of tricks like these to forever keep secret the names of the big oil lobbyists experts who dictated the outcome he consulted on his energy task force.

Back then, of course, Democrats were outraged that the Bush White House would try to hide that information from the public. One of the angriest was Rahm Emanuel, then a congressman and now Obama’s chief of staff.

“The vice president’s willingness to ignore the rules remains just as strong as ever,” Emanuel fumed. “Democrats are prepared to hold the vice president accountable and ensure that no one in our government is above the law.”

So why isn’t Rahm just as furious at his own boss, seeing how he is doing the same thing?



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Sources: HBO, TIME, Newsweek, The Gaggle, Youtube, Flickr, Google Maps